


Defiance

by LeslieFish



Category: Highlander - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-31
Updated: 2003-12-31
Packaged: 2018-12-18 06:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11868669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeslieFish/pseuds/LeslieFish
Summary: Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived atDaire's Fanfic Refuge. Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onDaire's Fanfic Refuge's collection profile.





	Defiance

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Daire's Fanfic Refuge](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Daire%27s_Fanfic_Refuge). Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Daire's Fanfic Refuge's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/dairesfanficrefuge/profile).

Defiance by Leslie Fish

_Defiance_

By Leslie Fish 

* * *

_Texas, 1932_

Duncan MacLeod drove cautiously down the dusty highway, even though he'd seen no other traffic for hours. The dust streaked the road ahead, covered the drought-stricken land around him and filled the air as a thick and constant haze. He was grateful that he'd thought to buy extra air-filters for the carburetor before setting out; the sturdy Model-A Ford had showed no signs of choking, as yet, but the relentless dust would get to it eventually if he wasn't careful. He'd have to stop and brush off the windshield again soon. 

The late-afternoon sun beat down like a hammer, and the dust hung in the still air like a threat of plague. The knowledge that the next several hundred miles would be exactly like this was infinitely depressing. 

Wait, what was that up ahead? Household gear, scattered by the side of the road: had some desperate Dust-Bowl Refugee family been forced to jettison goods to keep an overloaded car running? And was that low mound only a pile of clothes? He slowed to look further. 

Then the unmistakable aura hit him. Somewhere in that welter of broken chairs, discarded plates and linens and clothing, another immortal was coming back to life. 

Duncan pulled over by the roadside and looked ahead, automatically feeling for his katana under the seat. He saw tire-tracks in the dust drifted across the road, but no car anywhere. And among those piles of scattered goods lay something that was not clothes. Understanding clicked: this was the site of a recent car-robbery, with murder thrown in. He left the sword where it lay, turned off the engine and slid out of the car. 

Lying in the midst of the wreckage were the bodies of a young couple. The woman was feebly stirring, but the man was still. Duncan hurried to the woman and pulled her up, seeing a bloodstained gash in the front of her threadbare dress. She groaned and looked about vaguely. 

'Roger...?' she mumbled, then cried: 'Roger!' 

'Lie still,' Duncan told her, guessing whom she meant. 'I'll tend to him.' 

He went to the body of the man, lifted the near arm and felt for a pulse. There was nothing, and the flesh was cooling. Duncan sadly let the limp arm drop. The woman, seeing that, gave a desolate wail. She didn't seem to notice the huge giveaway bloodstain on the front of her dress. 

_Get her out of here, fast,_ Duncan thought. He turned back to the woman, pulled her to her feet and half-carried her to his car. He managed to get her into the passenger seat, gave her first some water from his canteen and then a healthy shot of whiskey, then went to gather up whatever he could find of her clothes. By the time he'd collected everything useful and returned to the car, the woman had fallen asleep. _Shock,_ he understood, piling the bundle of clothing on her lap so that it hid the bloodsoaked gash. _Just as well._

He closed the passenger-side door, went around the car and slid behind the wheel. The woman stayed asleep as he closed the door and started the engine. 

She didn't waken for another hour, fifty miles further west. 'What...?' was the first thing she said, followed by 'Who...?' 

'I'm Duncan MacLeod, ma'am,' he said, trying to put on something like a reassuring southwestern accent. 'I called the sheriff at the last town we passed. You were asleep, and I thought you needed it. Might I have your name?' 

'Helen Coverly,' she said, rubbing her forehead. 'Roger... We left 'im there! Oh, turn back!' 

'That wouldn't be a good idea, ma'am,' Duncan said firmly. 'Look at your dress.' 

Puzzled, she pushed the bundle away and looked down. She saw the gash, and the blood, and stared. And stared. 

'That would have been hard to explain to the sheriff,' he told her. 'I know what it means, and I think we'd best just keep on going.' 

Helen grabbed the bundle and pulled it tight against her, hiding the gash and stain. 'What...?' she asked again. 

  
By sundown, another hundred miles closer to California, Helen was a little more coherent. She was, he saw now, rather a handsome young woman under the dust and grime: big-eyed, sandy-blonde, with the tall rawboned look of the early Texas settlers -- accentuated by long months of underfeeding. By patient questioning he'd learned all the relevant facts. She'd been an orphan, raised by a kindly old couple who took in foster-children. She'd met Roger Coverly at a church social, had fallen in love with him soon after and married a year later. They'd had a farm, and got along on it well enough -- until the dust-storms came. With the farm ruined and lost to the bank for debts, they'd set out for California. On the road, they'd been stopped by a gang. 

'They blocked the road,' Helen went on, in her thick Texas twang. 'Five of 'em. They wanted money, an' we din't have none...' 

'So they attacked you, and took the car.' Duncan could see the rest of it. 

'...dragged us out o' the car. Tried to...take advantage o' me...' She gulped, remembering. '...an' Roger...' 

'He tried to save you.' 

'An' they shot 'im!' Helen wailed, tears starting. 'I fought an' kicked an' screamed, an'...one of 'em had a knife...' She faltered, wide-eyed. 'I felt it hit me.' 

'You died, Helen,' Duncan explained again, patiently. 'Your first death, first Quickening. From now on you won't age, nor suffer disease, nor truly die -- unless you're beheaded. I told you before. You have to believe me; there's so much you must learn, so fast.' 

'So I...came back,' Helen finally accepted it. 'But Roger din't. An' he was a sweet, kind, blameless man. Why me, an' not him? It ain't fair!' 

'It's never fair,' Duncan admitted grimly. 'It's just...the way it is.' 

'The way it is,' Helen muttered, clutching her bundle tighter. 'Still ain't fair.' 

  
Within another hour of driving, they hit the barest edge of a dust-storm. Duncan drove slower through the dark, his headlights cutting pale blades through the roiling dust to trace the bare highway ahead. Dry thunder rolled through the sky, throwing flashes of lightning through the dust-tainted clouds, and Duncan was extremely glad he'd changed the air-filter twenty miles back. 

Helen's shock had worn off, and she listened intently while Duncan spoke, learning fast. 

'You must learn sword-craft for your own sake,' Duncan said, talking now as much to keep himself awake and alert as to inform her. 'You can't rely on me or anyone else to protect you. I'll teach you myself, or find someone else if you'd prefer.' 

'I don' understand,' Helen cut in. 'Why're you so willin' ta help me, if we've all gotta fight each other 'til there's only one left?' 

'Because,' he sighed, remembering much, 'Once we're immortal, our friends and students are all the family we have. And I don't _want_ to fight. I've seen enough of war to have no love for killing. I'd rather live in peace, among friends who won't...wither and die like flowers in a handful of years. But there are always other immortals looking to take heads, gain power...and then there's the Prophecy.' 

'Who made that prophecy? Where'd it come from?' 

_Good question!_ 'I don't know.' 

'Then why d'we hafta believe it?' 

'I suppose,' he admitted bitterly, 'Because we don't know what else to believe about ourselves.' 

'But it's such a wicked thing! Ta make us immortal, then make us kill each other...' She shuddered. 'Are we under a curse?' 

'No,' Duncan answered. He'd thought long about this, ages past. 'What kind of curse would strike innocent people, at random, like this?' 

'It jus' don' make sense.' 

'I know.' 

'But killin' each other gives us...magic power? Until there's only one left, with all the power in the world?' 

'That's the Prophecy.' 

'It's a wicked prophecy,' Helen decided, 'An' I won' abide by it.' 

Duncan sighed. 'You won't have much choice when other immortals come after you.' 

'I will be neither a god nor a god-maker,' she insisted, jaw and eyes set. 

He glanced at her, startled to hear it put that way. 'How do you plan to prevent it?' 

'When we git ta Californy, please, first thing y'do -- git me a shotgun.' 

'A _shotgun?!_ ' 

'Livin' on a Texas farm, I got t'be purty good with a shotgun. I could take a man's head off with it, do I have to. Or I could jus' blow 'is heart out, run tell the po-leece he attacked me with a sword like a crazy man, an' leave 'im t'explain things ta the undertaker when he woke up.' 

Duncan laughed as he imagined it. 'Oh yes, that would give a headhunter trouble, true enough...' Then he sobered, thinking further. 'But in time he'd get away and come after you again.' 

'Then I'd jus' hafta repeat the lesson.' 

'But that risks something worse. Too many dead bodies waking up in the morgue... Mortals will eventually notice. If they learn about us, you know what they'll do.' 

'I know.' Helen shivered. 'Those men killed Roger an' me, jus' t'steal a car. What would they do if they thought they could steal eternal life?' 

'So they can't learn about us. Gunshots are louder than swordfights, and a headless corpse is easier to explain than a corpse that revives.' 

'Then I'll jus' hafta be...dis-creet. Please git me that shotgun; I've no use for swords.' 

'This isn't playing by the rules!' 

'They're wicked rules, an' I won' play by em.' 

A flash of lightning illuminated her determined face, set hard as fine-carved marble. 

* * *

_North Carolina, 1948_

It was a lovely early-summer day, not too warm and not too damp, and the Riverbend Annual Arts and Crafts Fair -- as the banner over the entrance to the city park proclaimed -- was extensive enough to delight the heart of any collector. 

Duncan MacLeod was happily examining some handmade furniture at one of the open-air booths when he felt the approaching presence of another immortal. He raised his head in surprise and looked about him, a little worried as always, but with no fear of a challenge in this tight-packed crowd. 

After a moment he saw her: a handsome woman with sandy-blonde hair, carrying a large painter's valise with a collapsible easel strapped to it. A second look revealed that she was Helen Coverly, much changed: much happier, cleaner, better fed and better dressed than when he'd first seen her -- or even last seen her. The years had been good to her. She spotted him, waved, and hurried toward him. 

'Duncan! Hello again!' she called, in a cultured and well-educated voice, her old Texas accent almost entirely gone. 

'Helen!' he marveled, moving toward her. 'You look wonderful! What have you been doing these last fifteen years?' 

'Oh, come here and I'll show you,' she smirked, taking his arm. She led him peremptorily toward another booth, some twenty-odd yards away. 'Let's hope Mrs. Panke hasn't sold them all before we get there.' 

'Sold all of what?' 

'My paintings, you dear!' She laughed, half-shoving him at the booth. It was, he saw, full of paintings -- mostly landscapes, all very realistic. To one side, by a table, sat a white-haired old lady -- clearly a born saleswoman -- clinching a sale to a well-dressed couple. 'I started painting before I left San Francisco, remember?' 

_Damn, I'd forgotten!_ Duncan looked closer, studying a picture of a lush pasture full of glossy cattle under golden sunlight. The scene radiated pastoral wealth and peace and contentment -- all the things Helen hadn't had in 1932 Texas. It was beautifully rendered, the brushstrokes applied with sure technique and clear confidence. 'I hadn't realized you were this serious,' he admitted. 'Or this good.' 

'When I was a girl, I dreamed of being an artist,' Helen smiled. 'Now I've finally become one -- good enough to make a decent living, at least.' 

Duncan glanced at the other paintings, none of which were in any way inferior. 'These are more than decent, Helen,' he considered. 'I could sell these for you on the international market.' 

'What, all your sophisticated European friends, buy pictures of fat cows? Stop pulling my leg, Duncan.' 

'I'll have you know that pastoral scenes have always been respectable subjects in European art. Besides, it's the technique that counts, and these are...well, incredible.' 

'You really mean that?' she asked, shyly as a little girl. 

Duncan glanced around to make certain that no mortal ears were listening. 'I mean it, Helen,' he said. 'You're a very good painter. In a few decades, you could be a great one.' 

'What, right up there with Rembrandt and Michelangelo and the rest?' 

'Seriously, you could be one of the--' He caught himself as he realized the irony of the phrase. 'Hah! Immortal artists!' 

They met each other's eyes, and smiled. 

'It's good to know,' Helen murmured, 'that there's more than one kind of immortality.' 

'Perhaps there always was,' Duncan replied, just as quietly. 

Helen thought for a moment, then visibly came to a decision. 'Perhaps you'd like to see some others, different subjects, the ones I don't usually sell. Do you have time to come up to the house?' 

'Of course.' 

  
A quarter-hour later they arrived at Helen's home: a refurbished farmhouse sitting on a hill above a steep-sided canyon, surrounded by land that had gone back to forest. They drove to the front door and got out, whereupon two nondescript hounds came running up to dance around them, barking. Helen idly patted their heads, and led Duncan to the front door. 

'Even after the Depression,' she explained, 'land prices hereabouts were very low. I got this place for almost nothing.' 

Inside lay the front parlor, sparsely furnished, but all with good quality and excellent taste. Helen led him through it quickly, not stopping to set down her valise. 

'I suppose fixing the house took a lot more,' Duncan guessed, following her. 

'Oh, yes: nearly a year's wages in a war-plant.' She led him into a hallway with two doors on the right and two on the left. 'Kitchen and dining-room on the right,' she said, pointing, 'Bathroom here, and my bedroom down there.' 

'Ah, nice to know,' Duncan chuckled playfully. 

His words had an unexpected effect. Helen grasped his arm to halt him, and gave him a long intent look. 'You know,' she said, 'I really did bring you out here to show you my paintings...' 

'But...?' 

She smiled slowly. 'But it's good to be with someone who knows, so I don't have to hide anything. I've waited a long time for that.' 

Then she led Duncan firmly down the hall to the second door on the left. Duncan's eyebrows rose to his hairline, but he didn't protest. 

  
Helen's bedroom was utilitarian but comfortable -- all but the bed, which was shamelessly wide and lush with pillows. She set down her valise beside the bed, turned to face Duncan and boldly unfastened the top button of his shirt. He laughed, remembering what a determined woman she was, and returned the gesture. 

Within a few minutes they were down to their underwear, clothing scattered on the bed and floor, giggling like playful and slightly naughty children. Duncan sat back on the bed and pulled off his undershirt. Helen, sprawled beside him, pulled off his last sock and wickedly tickled his foot. 

'Aaaack!' he yelped. 'Helen, please!' 

'Shall I kiss it and make it better?' she grinned. 

'I can think of better things to kiss,' he all but leered. 

Helen abandoned his foot and crawled up him, kissing as she went. 'How shall I kiss thee?' she misquoted. 'Let me count the ways..' 

'I'll kiss thee to the depth and breadth and height...' Duncan matched her. 

In another minute they'd peeled off everything, and were rolling about in a welter of pillows, abandoned clothing and rumpled bedspread, holding tight and kissing seriously. Duncan slid a hand down Helen's back to grip her near buttock, and she returned the favor, making him jump. A pillow fell off the bed to land on the floor beside the valise, and the bed creaked in a slowly steadying rhythm. 

Some measureless time later Duncan and Helen lay quietly, tangled up in each other's arms, and the pillows and bedspread. Helen stretched, and chuckled softly. 

'Still want to come see my...etchings?' she purred. 

'Come first, etchings later,' Duncan laughed against her neck. 'But I thought it was paintings.' 

'It is. Still interested?' 

'More than ever.' Duncan pulled himself up and felt around for his clothes. 'Did you see where my shorts got off to?' 

  
Eventually they reached the studio. Helen set down her valise and waved an expressive hand, taking in the whole area. It was a large bare room with huge skylights and windows, letting in the southern angle of sunlight that illuminated an easel. A painting still in progress sat on the easel, covered with a dust-cloth. The walls were crowded with paintings and stacks of bare canvases. After a moment's indecision, Duncan went to the near wall to study the completed paintings stacked along the wall there. 

'As I promised,' Helen said dryly, 'very different subjects.' 

Duncan nodded absently as he studied the nearest painting. It was a powerful, subtly surrealistic piece showing a man's torn body lying amid wreckage beside a road, against barren dust-yellow fields, under a sky thick with dust-clouds that formed almost-clear but menacing shapes. Above the body knelt a weeping woman -- clearly Helen -- in a bloodstained dress. 

He shivered, stepped away from the painting and looked at the next in line. 

This one was more openly surrealistic in treatment, showing a crowd of people moving out of a barren landscape toward a suggestion of greener land and clearer light. To one side, under slightly different and more blue-toned light, marched a smaller crowd of different people. These included no elders or children, and all of them carried swords. Among them were portraits of Helen and himself. 

'I see what you mean,' he murmured. 'Are they all this...subtle?' 

'Not necessarily.' 

Helen went to the easel and pulled away the dust-cloth. 

The revealed painting, though still rough-finished at the bottom, showed two very human angels with insubstantial wings fighting with swords amid flashes of blue lightning against a dark sky. In the clouds above them a true angel, with halo and realistic wings, covered its eyes and wept at the battle below. 

Duncan shivered again. 'How much of this was drawn from life?' he asked. 

'Very little. I've never seen it done, if that's what you're asking.' 

Away in some irrelevant distance, the dogs began barking again. 

'Then you've never had to--' 

'Never,' she smiled. 'I kept my promise, Duncan.' 

He paused, torn between admiration for her good fortune and worry about her future survival. Fifteen years without intrusion by The Game was a good long stretch, as he had cause to know. Inevitably, it would have to end. 

Before he could think of anything to say, the aura of another immortal distracted them both. 

'Dammit!' Duncan snapped. 'I left my sword in the car!' 

'Don't worry; I'll protect you,' Helen promised. She dropped to her knees beside the painter's valise, flipped up the catches and pulled it open. 

' _Buon giorno!_ ' called an approaching voice from the doorway. 'Did you know that your guard-dogs are completely worthless? I walked right past them.' 

Through the door came striding a middle-sized, darkly handsome man who drew his sword with a flourish. He was flashily dressed: his sword -- an Italian Renaissance saber -- was fussy with decoration, and lesser blades hung from his belt and peeped from his boot-tops. He'd plainly prepared for the occasion like an opera-singer for a plum role. Duncan recognized him at once, even as the intruder saw him. 

'Ah, MacLeod too!' the man all but chirped. 'As they say in this country, two for the price of one, eh? And both of you most woefully unprepared. So, who goes first?' 

'Oh god,' Duncan groaned in disgust. 'Sambolini!' 

'Who?' Helen asked, shoving palette and paint-tray and brushes out of her valise. 

The man advanced, making a few theatrical but efficient swings with his sword. 'Vittorio Sambolini, at your service,' he said. 

'A headhunter,' Duncan explained. 

Sambolini indignantly raised his sword. 'A swordsman, _signore!_ ' he insisted. 

Duncan lunged to the easel, knocked the painting aside, grabbed the easel and yanked up its foot just in time to catch the charging Sambolini in the solar plexus. Sambolini fell back, but recovered fast and charged at Duncan again. The fight promptly turned into a scramble of mismatched improvisations, Duncan using the easel like a pikestaff while Sambolini tried, unsuccessfully, to get in reach with his sword. 

Meanwhile, Helen's hands in the valise thrust aside tubes of paint and jars of turpentine -- until she revealed, nestled diagonally in the bottom of the valise, a sawed-off pump-action shotgun. 

The battle reached the stage of a lively standoff, Duncan unable to do any serious damage with the easel, Sambolini -- for all his best efforts -- unable to get close enough to jab or slice effectively with the sword. The easel suffered the most, collecting nicks and scars with impressive speed. 

Then the shotgun boomed. Sambolini flinched violently as a ragged red hole blossomed suddenly on his shirt. Surprised, he dropped his sword and fell -- revealing, behind him, Helen holding the smoking shotgun. She glowered at the fallen body and automatically jacked the slide, reloading. 

'Hey,' Duncan panted, half outraged and half ready to fall down laughing, 'Two-on-one is against the rules!' 

'But attackin' an unarmed man ain't?' Helen snapped, her old accent resurfacing with a vengeance. 'Pooh!' 

'...Well, I see you finally got your shotgun.' _Hell, I should have gone ahead and bought her one, all those years ago._

'Dayum right,' said Helen, tucking the gun under her arm. 'Now help me drag the carcass out. Hurry, before he wakes up.' 

Helen leading, they lifted Sambolini's body by the knees and shoulders and carried it out the back door of the house. She marched determinedly toward the gaping maw of the canyon, and Duncan began seriously worrying about her intentions. 

'Helen,' he finally asked, 'just what do you have in mind?' 

'To keep 'em busy,' Helen replied, her Texas accent beginning to fade. 'How long before he comes to?' 

'At his age? And powers? ...Maybe half an hour.' 

'Time enough.' 

Helen brought them to the edge of the cliff, and Duncan got a good look down into the canyon. It was impressively steep and rocky. 

'Oh, no,' he groaned. 'You don't mean...?' 

'Yep. Down there.' 

'Ouch.' 

'On the count of three. One...' 

She began swinging the body. 

'Two...' 

Duncan got into the swing with her. 

'Three!' 

They swung Sambolini out over the cliff's edge and let him go. For long seconds afterward the sounds of bumping, thumping and falling rocks marked his passage all the way to the bottom. 

  
Helen went to the house and returned with a blanket and a picnic basket, and her shotgun tucked under her arm. She spread out the blanket, opened the basket and laid out lunch: homemade sandwiches on paper plates, a bottle of rose-pink wine and a pair of real glasses. 

Duncan sat on a corner of the blanket, took a sandwich and toyed with it, feeling a little dismayed. Helen opened the bottle, took up the glasses and poured out the wine. 

'I figure,' she said, filling the second glass, 'between healing up and climbing up, he'll show up in about five-ten more minutes. We might as well be comfortable while we wait.' 

'Maybe he'll have the sense to walk away, down the riverbed, and be safe -- for once.' Duncan took his glass and studied it as if the sight were fascinating. 'But knowing him...' 

'Well, some folks are just slow learners.' Helen took a sip of her wine, and smiled approval. 'Most folks learn after one lesson, a few come back a second time, and once in awhile some hard-headed fool takes three lessons or more.' 

'You've done this before?!' Duncan gaped. '...How many times?' 

'This boy makes number six.' She took another leisurely sip while he stared at her. 

'Uh, good track record,' he managed. 'But what do you do if they sneak up on you, try to catch you in your sleep or away from the shotgun?' 

'That's what the dogs are for: burglar alarms. I usually pay 'em better heed.' 

Duncan was unable to fault her system. 'And do you always have that shotgun with you?' 

'Never out of reach.' 

He was still thinking that over when they felt an immortal presence approaching. 

'Oh, damnation!' Helen guessed, setting down her glass. 'Here he comes again.' 

Duncan rolled his eyes as he watched her take up her shotgun and hide it behind her leg, out of sight from the cliff. 

At the cliff's edge, Sambolini came crawling over the top. He was ragged, scraped, bruised, covered with fresh wounds and the bloodstains of earlier ones. Plainly he'd had a hard time climbing back up the cliff, but he was a determined man. He dragged himself to his feet, felt at his waist for his remaining blades, and glowered at Helen. 

' _Signorina,_ ' he grumbled, 'you are not playing by the rules of The Game!' 

Out of his sight, Helen's hand gripped the shotgun. Duncan, watching her unseen hand, only rubbed his forehead. He could see where this was going. 

'Well, who are you to talk?' Helen retorted. 'Attackin' an unarmed man!' Her Texas accent was back. 

'A true player of The Game is never truly unarmed!' Sambolini insisted, actually striking a pose. 

'Well, they're wicked rules in a wicked game,' Helen snapped, 'and you're a wicked man for playing it. But I'm no headhunter; if y'leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. Jus' walk away, with your head on.' 

'And leave this dishonor unavenged?' Sambolini puffed. 'Never!' 

He pulled a large knife out of his belt, and charged. 

Duncan simply shook his head as Helen whipped up the shotgun and fired. 

Sambolini jerked to a stop as a sudden red pattern bloomed on the front of what remained of his shirt. Wearing a dismayed look, he dropped the knife and stumbled backward -- then fell over the cliff again. And again, the sounds of bumping, thumping and falling rocks detailed his progress all the way back to the bottom of the canyon. 

Helen reloaded her shotgun with a loud clack. 'Care to stay for Round Three?' she asked. 

'You know,' Duncan sighed, 'I'll never be able to look at Monet's 'Luncheon on the Grass' again without thinking of you.' 

  
A little while later, Duncan settled into his car and started the engine. Helen, still holding the shotgun, stood nearby and fondly watched his departure. The dogs danced noisily around her, begging for attention. Duncan reached into a pocket, brought out a card and handed it to her. 

'Yes, I'm serious,' he insisted. 'Five of the pastoral scenes and five of the surrealistic ones. Have them crated carefully; don't let the surfaces touch.' 

'I'll be careful,' Helen smiled, tucking the card into the breast pocket of her blouse. 'You come back anytime, y'hear?' 

'If I can,' Duncan promised. Goodbye, Helen -- and good luck.' 

He shifted into first gear and rolled down the long driveway, concentrating on the twists and turns of the road. Behind him, Helen cradled the shotgun in one hand and waved farewell with the other, then turned and walked back into the house. 

Duncan drove slowly down the road, not simply because it was twisting and narrow, but because he had much to think about. Helen's system, bizarre as it was, truly worked. It was possible -- with enough wit, determination and good reaction-time -- to make a separate peace, beat The Game, or at least withdraw from it on one's own terms. There could be a way for him, too, if he thought about it. He didn't have to play kill-or-be-killed. There was a way to live in peace, and not only on holy ground. 

In the distance, he heard the distinct boom of a shotgun. 

He flinched, shook his head, and drove on. 

\--END-- 

* * *

© 2003   
Please send comments to the author! 

02/18/2004 

* * *


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